Civil Disobedience at the Berlin Wall - Idaho Human Rights ...

Teacher Handout #2
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November 2002+}
Hans Conrad Schumann (1942-June 20, 1998) was one of the most famous
escapees from the GDR.
Schumann served as a soldier in the Nationale Volksarmee. After a three-month
training in Dresden, he was commandeered to a non-commissioned officers' college in
Potsdam, after which he volunteered for service in Berlin.
On August 15, 1961, at the age of 19, he was guarding the Berlin Wall, then in its
third day of construction, at the corner of Ruppinerstraße and Bernauerstraße. The
"wall" was at that stage no more than a low barbed-wire fence. Seizing the
opportunity, he jumped over the barbed wire, and was then taken away from the
border at high speed in a police car. His escape was captured on film by photographer
Peter Leibing, and the image (shown here) became one of the most famous images of
the cold war.
He was later permitted to travel from West Berlin to the main territory of the Federal
Republic of Germany, where he settled in Bavaria. He met his wife Kunigunde in the
town of Günzburg .
After the Berlin Wall was opened, he said, "Only since November 9, 1989 [the date of
its opening] have I felt truly free". However, he continued to feel more at home in
Bavaria than in his birthplace, citing old hurts with his former colleagues, and
hesitated even to visit his parents and brothers and sisters in Saxonia. On June 20,
1998, suffering from depression, he hanged himself in the town of Kipfenberg in
Oberbayern.
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